


The Reluctant Revolutionary

by weakinteraction



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Gen, Politics, The Aegis, on a galactic scale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-26 04:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18176012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Tsing, immediately after the movie.





	The Reluctant Revolutionary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



Diomika paced around her cabin in a state of uncharacteristic indecision. The captain's quarters were generous in size, but she kept them spartan in furnishing. Her few ornaments were either mementoes from home or morbid souvenirs of her previous actions. It was always important to remember the cost.

The cost of what she was about to do, though, was hard to calculate, except for the part where it would inevitably involve considerably more contact with the galactic bureaucracy than she would ever willingly subject herself to. She forced herself to sit back down at the station which contained her direct, secure connection with the Translight Archive, its store of quantum-entangled bits glowing softly at its core, ready to be used to transfer the information as soon as she committed it -- instant, non-local, tamper-proof, write-only communication. It was not long since their last docking at an Archival Node, and the store was still relatively full. At the end of the Abukesh campaign, it had been almost extinguished, the lists of the dead she had had to submit had been so long.

Diomika read through her completed report for what felt like the hundredth time, though she knew it was only the third. It was accurate, at least insofar as it did not contain any lies. It was fair, in that she had highlighted the exemplary conduct of many of her crew, human and splice alike.

It was a political bombshell, and many among her superiors would be much happier if she saved them several headaches and never sent it.

She knew that her actions were beyond reproach: Balem Abrasax's scheme had been illegal. More importantly, in terms of how things would be received, it had been _disorderly_ \-- the Entitled could always find ways around the niceties of the law for one of their own, if they were so inclined. But Balem had shown himself to be an unstable element, a radioactive substance with a dangerously short half-life. There would have been no problem had he conducted his vendetta against his mother -- or rather her recurrence -- in the usual ways, exacting a slow revenge for whatever he had imagined her crimes to be through carefully calibrated slights that only those of refined etiquette would even detect, and ruthless business manoeuvring in the galactic stock market. But no, he had been far too direct in his methods, and his peers would be glad to learn of his passing.

The problem was with Seraphi Abrasax's recurrence herself. The Terrsie who had come into possession of a huge estate that she didn't intend to harvest, and seemed determined to make a lycantant her consort. If Balem had been radioactive, Jupiter Jones was a new universal singularity that threatened to collapse the billion-years-old false vacuum state of galactic society.

Diomika knew full well that the Aegis was distinctly not a meritocracy; anyone who believed the propaganda that it was was extremely gullible at best, utterly deluded at worst. The splices were tolerated, even valued in some roles, but their second class status was never questioned.

Sure, there were occasional stories -- endlessly recycled by the propaganda machinery, of course -- of people who had worked their way up through the ranks on merit, but far more common were the cases of officers selling their commissions, not caring whether or not their buyers had any qualifications at all -- once, the High Generalship of an entire spiral arm had changed hands for a single dose of RegeneX. Those who felt sympathy for the old High General on first hearing the story -- his desire to save his only daughter from a rare condition that affected only one in a billion an understandable motivation -- rapidly changed their minds when they heard about the string of rebellions that his replacement had utterly failed to deal with, and, arguably, caused with his inept handling of conflicts between the local Entitled. Eventually, he had been killed by a rogue splice newly assigned to his command staff. The fact that the splicer who had created the ophidiform only months earlier, and the adjutant in charge of the High General's personnell, were lovers, and that they had both retired soon after to a pleasure planet owned by the Entitled in whose favour the _new_ new High General had settled the dispute was, of course, purely a coincidence.

No, the Aegis was not a meritocracy. But the propaganda worked because people wanted one. Wanted there to be somewhere in the galaxy that fair play won out, wanted there to be just one institution that, even if it upheld the rule of the Entitled, was not sclerotically corrupt. Diomika's report was filled with entirely valid justifications of her actions -- she had felt the Inquiry Board looking over her shoulder as she drafted and redrafted it, adding tiny details that she could imagine suddenly becoming highly relevant -- but she knew that in the heat of the crisis, she had worked on instinct. Instincts shaped not just by her training, but by the sense of natural justice that had been instilled in her, because somewhere deep at its heart the Aegis recognised that the best way to prevent mutiny was to deal fairly with all ranks. There was strict discipline, and there were many, many obscure rules and regulations that became relevant only once a millennium or so, in highly specific situations, but good officers were the ones who took their people with them willingly.

And that, Diomika knew, was what had happened. No one had questioned her orders, because they knew that they were doing the right thing. She had plotted the course through the hyperspace turbulence on the border between what was legal and what was just, even though it had seemed in some moments as though there was no safe passage to be had.

Jupiter Jones would have to navigate the same path, if she was to have any hope at all of success. As soon as the story of who Seraphi Abrasax's recurrence was, and what she had done, became widespread, the other Entitled would do their best to suppress any reforms she might try to put forward, even on those worlds that she owned and would be wholly _entitled_ to do so. They would tie her up in the courts on any and every pretext they could find; they would try to buy up her assets and destabilise her position in the market, though Jones herself had already done so, whether she realised it or not, the RegeneX futures based on the idea that the Abrasax estate's planets would be harvested rendered instantly worthless by her opposition to ever doing so. She had a steep gravitational gradient ahead of her, and it wasn't in her favour.

On the other hand, Balem had already paid the price for underestimating her. And though Diomika wasn't clear on the details, it seemed she had already achieved a few minor feats of legal manoeuvring in relation to Titus as well. But if such success was to continue, a full and accurate report from an unbiased Aegis officer would help her to smooth over the repercussions of the conflict.

Diomika looked at the document one more time, and realised in a sudden moment of clarity that the path ahead had always been clear; the fact that it would be a difficult one was irrelevant. It was her duty to provide the information, but more important it was the right thing to do too.

Still, though, she hesitated for a long moment before using her thumbprint to authorise the transmission. Diomika Tsing had multiple decorations for valorous conduct. And yet in that moment she felt as though the bravest thing she had ever done was to commit a simple report to the Translight Archive.


End file.
